The only teams without a home victory so far are both playoff teams from last season. The Pittsburgh Penguins are 0-2-0 at The House That Sid Built despite packing record crowds into the arena for both of their games. The Nashville Predators, who have gone to a shootout in four of their seven games — incredible in itself — have been on the wrong end of tiebreakers in both of their games in Music City.

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Phil is phine

Phil Kessel has taken 27 shots on goal without scoring, the most of any player in the league. Last season, Kessel scored 37 goals for the Toronto Maple Leafs on 295 shots for an accuracy rate of 12.5 percent. For his career, Kessel is a 10.6 percent shooter, which means that he could have expected to score 2.8 goals (okay, call it three) by now. The goals will come, but for now, Toronto has to be at least pretty happy with a 3-3 start given that their top goal scorer hasn’t found the back of the net, and Joffrey Lupul is out with a broken arm.

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Zoned out

Chicago Blackhawks rookie winger Brandon Saad does not have a point, but that's not for lack of opportunities. The 2011 second-round draft pick has started 78.6 percent of his shifts in the offensive zone, third-most in the NHL among players who have appeared in at least five games. The only players with a higher rate of offensive zone starts are Los Angeles Kings rookie defenseman Jake Muzzin at 82.1 percent and first-year Colorado Avalanche tough guy Patrick Bordeleau, at an incredible 90.9 percent. Meanwhile, Predators rookie defenseman Rich Clune is getting a trial by fire, starting 92.9 percent of his shifts outside the offensive zone.

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Uneven strengths

During 5-on-5 play, the Calgary Flames have the worst save percentage in the league, at .885, which helps explain why they are last in the Western Conference at 1-3-1, especially considering that Jarome Iginla is second to Phil Kessel with 19 shots on goal without scoring. Meanwhile, the second-worst team in 5-on-5 save percentage at .886, the New York Islanders, have raced to a 4-2-1 record on the strength of the NHL’s second-best scoring offense (27 goals), hottest power play (37.5 percent) and second-stingiest penalty kill (96 percent). All of those numbers should see some regression to the mean.

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Half-good

Thomas Vanek leads the NHL with 15 points, which means that he has been on the scoresheet for 65 percent of the Buffalo Sabres’ goals. Other players who have been involved in at least half of their teams’ goals are Vanek’s teammate Jason Pominville (12 points/23 Sabres goals), Detroit’s Pavel Datsyuk (8/14) and Henrik Zetterberg (7/14), Edmonton’s Taylor Hall (9/18), Minnesota’s Zach Parise (9/18), New Jersey’s David Clarkson (8/16), the New York Rangers’ Marian Gaborik (8/16), San Jose’s Patrick Marleau (14/27) and Joe Thornton (14/27), and Washington’s Mike Ribeiro (8/15).